Community of Images
Image: From Ko Nakajima’s Ryūdōtai Projector (1969). ©Ko Nakajima.
Image: Yukihisa Isobe’s Air Dome. ©Yukihisa Isobe, courtesy of Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.
Community of Images: Japanese Moving Image Artists in the US, 1960s-1970s, is an exhibition that explores experimental moving images created by Japanese artists and their connections to North America.
Covering a wide range of practices and themes–including avant-garde film, performance, design and healing, ecology, expanded cinema, independent documentary, music, race, feminism, video art, community-based video, technology and communication, and others– the project features works and activities that took place in Japan and in the U.S.
The project is curated by the collective members of Collaborative Cataloging Japan (CCJ)–Go Hirasawa, Julian Ross, and Ann Adachi-Tasch–and co-presented with Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia (JASGP), with community engagement leadership by Rob Buscher.
Drawing from specific instances represented in the exhibition, we aim to form connections between the historic practices to the contemporary and the local. By collaboratively thinking through these specific instances with Philadelphia-based artists and media-making organizations, we aim to organize programs that bring this history alive and meaningful to today’s audiences.
This project is co-presented by Collaborative Cataloging Japan and the Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia in partnership with Philadelphia Art Alliance at University of the Arts. Major support has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, with additional support from the Andy Warhol Foundation, the Toshiba International Foundation, Pola Art Foundation, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Philadelphia Cultural Fund, and Japan Foundation.
